Tritium contamination of growing stockpile of radioactive water leads to outcry against release to Pacific at Fukushima Daiichi

Gray and silver storage tanks filled with radioactive wastewater are sprawling over the grounds of the Fukushima Daiichi plant. Kyodo News, via Associated Press.In an article entitled "Flow of Tainted Water Is Latest Crisis at Japan Nuclear Plant," the New York Times has reported that continuing leaks of groundwater into the rubblized Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant is causing a flood of radioactively contaminated water requiring a sprawling -- and ever growing -- complex of water storage tanks.

As the New York Times reports:

'...But the biggest problem, critics say, was that Tepco and other members of the oversight committee appeared to assume all along that they would eventually be able to dump the contaminated water into the ocean once a powerful new filtering system was put in place that could remove 62 types of radioactive particles, including strontium.

The dumping plans have now been thwarted by what some experts say was a predictable problem: a public outcry over tritium, a relatively weak radioactive isotope that cannot be removed from the water.

Tritium, hich can be harmful only if ingested, is regularly released into the environment by normally functioning nuclear plants, but even Tepco acknowledges that the water at Fukushima contains about 100 times the amount of tritium released in an average year by a healthy plant...

...The public outcry over the plans to dump tritium-tainted water into the sea — driven in part by the company’s failure to inform the public in 2011 when it dumped radioactive water into the Pacific — was so loud that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe personally intervened last month to say that there would be “no unsafe release.”

Meanwhile, the amount of water stored at the plant just keeps growing.

“How could Tepco not realize that it had to get public approval before dumping this into the sea?” said Muneo Morokuzu, an expert on public policy at the University of Tokyo who has called for creating a specialized new company just to run the cleanup. “This all just goes to show that Tepco is in way over its head.”...'

It should be pointed out that tritium is not a "relatively weak radioactive isotope," but rather a relatively powerful one, once incorporated into the human body. Tritium is a clinically proven cause of cancer, birth defects, and genetic damage.

It must also be corrected that ingestion is not the only pathway for tritium incorporation -- inhalation, and even absorption through the skin, are hazardous exposure pathways.

Remembering Chernobyl, 27 years on. "Life" in the exclusion zone.

 Most of the people who live in the villages around the Zone have diseases caused by radiation. Most of them are old, and their level of mortality is really high." So writes photographer, Arthur Bondar, based in Kiev, Ukraine, who started to visit Chernobyl in 2008, and has returned frequently in the past five years to photograph the villages and the people living near the exclusion zone. He found intense suffering and a resignation to the inevitable fate of living in a highly radioactive area. Read more and view Bondar's photos.

Japanese court rejects case demanding evacuation of children

A court in Sendai, Japan, has ruled that the city of Koriyama has no legal obligation to evacuate its children even though it acknowledged that radiation levels in the Fukushima prefecture city exceed levels deemed safe prior to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor meltdowns. The decision leaves families burdened with the expense of self-evacuating. A lawyer for the Koriyma parents and activists who brought the suit declared the decision unfairly victimizes children who had "absolutely no responsibility" for the nuclear disaster. Children who should be enjoying carefree childhoods are now instead subjected to the fears and realities of radiation exposure and the possibility of cancer manifesting later in life (see picture). The ruling can be appealed. Koriyama is located about 40 miles from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power reactors. Read more.

Update on April 30, 2013 by admin

A commentary on this decision by Noam Chomsky: "It is deeply disturbing to learn that the courts have blocked efforts to evacuate children from the Fukushima site, though acknowledging the health risks. Nothing tells us more about the moral level of a society than how it treats the most vulnerable, in this case its most precious possession, its children. I hope and trust that this grim decision will be reversed."

Boxer calls NRC "beyond irresponsible" as agency buckles on safety at San Onofre

From CNS: Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Wednesday blasted a preliminary finding by Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff that restarting a unit at the idled San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (near San Diego, CA) would not present significant safety hazards. 

Officials with Southern California Edison, the plant's majority owner and operator, have asked for permission to operate the plant's Unit 2 reactor at 70 percent beginning June 1. The utility wants to run the unit at partial power for five months, then shut it down for an inspection of steam pressure tubes. 

Boxer and Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass, sent a letter to the NRC this week demanding that a comprehensive investigation of the plant be completed before any units are permitted to operate. They also said full public hearings should be held before a decision is made. 

"The NRC staff proposal, which could pave the way for the restart of the San Onofre nuclear power plant before the investigation of the crippled plant are completed, is dangerous and premature," Boxer said in response to the commission staff's preliminary finding. "It makes absolutely no sense to even consider taking any steps to reopen San Onofre until these investigations look at every aspect of reopening the plant, given the failure of the tubes that carry radioactive water. 

"In addition, the damaged plant is located in an area at risk of earthquake and tsunami," she said. "With 8 million people living within 50 miles of this plant, the staff proposal is beyond irresponsible." Read more.

Former NRC Chairman Jaczko calls for all U.S. atomic reactors to be shut down

Gregory Jaczko, who served as U.S. NRC Chairman from 2009-2012As reported by the New York Times, former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Gregory B. Jaczko recently came to the realization that all U.S. atomic reactors have unfixable safety flaws, and should be shut down. He added, however, that "new and improved" so-called small modular reactors could take their place.

Jaczko thinks that perhaps none of the reactors that have received NRC rubber-stamps for 20-year license extensions will ever last that long, in reality, let alone an additional 20-year extension NRC is currently flirting with the idea of allowing (40 years of initial operation, plus two 20-year license extensions, adding up to 80 years of operations!).

Oyster Creek, NJ (a Mark I) is the oldest still-running reactor in the U.S., although it is already planned to close by 2019, ten years short of its 20-year extension. Dominion Nuclear has also announced the permanent shutdown of Kewaunee in WI next month, although it still have decades of permitted operations on its license.

Ironically, Jaczko himself approved many 20-year license extensions, including at Palisades in MI (opposed by NIRS and a state-wide environmental coalition) and Vermont Yankee (opposed by the vast majority of Green Mountain State residents and elected officials). Jaczko even voted to not hearing Beyond Nuclear's contentions at the Seabrook, NH and Davis-Besse, OH license extension proceedings regarding renewable alternatives, such as wind power, to the 20-year extensions at the dangerously degraded old reactors.

Jaczko reached out to Beyond Nuclear in May 2012 to set up a meeting between his entourage from NRC and concerned local residents and environmental group representatives near Palisades after he toured the problem-plagued reactor. During the closed-door meeting, concerned locals pressed Jaczko on why the 42-year-old, dangerously age-degraded reactor was allowed to operate. He responded, ironically enough, given his yes vote on Palisades' license extension in 2007, that once NRC grants an atomic reactor a license to operate, there is little that can then be done about it.

Jaczko did, however, earn the enmity of the nuclear power industry and his fellow NRC Commissioners, as by his past work against the proposed Yucca Mountain dumpsite, his invocation of emergency powers during the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, and his votes against proposed new reactors in GA and SC because Fukushima "lessons learned" had not yet been applied or required. Although Jaczko often voted the industry's way, as above, he didn't always (often the sole dissenting vote), making him "insufficiently pro-nuclear" for the nuclear establishment, as Beyond Nuclear board member and investigative journalist Karl Grossman put it.

Jaczko was first appointed to the NRC Commission in 2005. In 2009, President Obama appointed him the chair the agency, which he did till 2012. He had previously worked on Capitol Hill, as a staffer for U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), and as a science fellow for U.S. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA), working on the Yucca Mountain and other nuclear power and radioactive waste issues.